


Invictus

by shewhoguards



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: F/M, Grief, Treat, the gods - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 01:37:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11910504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shewhoguards/pseuds/shewhoguards
Summary: It's harder to accept that something was simple misfortune when you have met your gods face to face.Spoilers for Thick As Thieves,





	Invictus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Trismegistus (Lebateleur)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lebateleur/gifts).



> Warning: This fic deals with canonical miscarriage.

For nearly a week, Eugenides had barely stirred from her side. Irene had drifted in and out of sleep; at times barely conscious of what happening, at others all too aware of what they had lost. Always he had been there.

Now he was gone. For nearly half a day, the absence nagged at her. It was right for a man informed that his wife would survive a grievous loss should visit the temple, and yet it nagged at her, the certainty that he had been praying for _too long_. After the third attendant she sent had returned to report he was still in the temple she decided that it was time to go and find him herself, whatever the healers had to say about it.

With any other man it would have been easy to assume that he was devoutly thanking the gods for the recovery of his wife. With any other man the assumption would likely have been right, but life was different when you had met the gods face to face.

Irene lowered herself carefully to sit beside his hunched figure; she tired too easily still to stand for long. She kept her voice low as she asked him, “And have they responded?”

“No.” He raised his head to look at her, his tone filled with weary bitterness. “Funny how much quicker they are when they want us to obey them, isn’t it?” Somehow he managed a smile, although there was no humour there. “Though I suggested that if they told me to stop whining over this I might feel compelled to burn the temple to the ground. That might have had them reconsidering their wording.”

As though suddenly remembering that she was only just recovering, he offered her his arm. Gratefully she leaned against him. “I tell myself it would be easier if we knew why, but I’m not sure it would,” she admitted. Her voice was calm, without the tears that might have been expected after recent events. Irene had learned too long ago to face life’s tragedies dry-eyed - and then to fight them.

Eugenides sighed, acknowledging that. “And if the answer came back that we had dared to conceive a boy when their plans required a girl, or had the temerity to make a child at a time inconvenient to them..” He fell quiet, presumably considering if there was an answer they could offer that he would have found acceptable.

“Or if we are simply not intended to leave a heir behind us,” Irene said, daring to speak aloud that fear. Try to shake it as she might, still it whispered itself to her. The gods who would arrange that no-one stood in the way of Helen’s line of succession would not hesitate to dispose of something as small as a baby if they decided another was more suitable to inherit Attolia, Eddis and Sounis combined.

Eugenides only nodded, and tightened his arm around her waist. Clearly she had not been alone in considering that possibility. For a long moment they sat together in silence.

“I don’t know that I can forgive them this,” he admitted quietly, after that pause. “I thought that after--” he didn’t need to complete that, “I thought that was the worst they could do. I thought perhaps I understood. But this -- I am not sure there is anything that could justify it to me.” 

It had been a long time since Irene had flinched from the memory of what she had done. Absently, her fingers traced her husband’s wrist, the point where skin met metal. “So, don’t forgive them,” she said. “I don’t know anyone who would ask you to -- certainly, I would not. But remember--” this, hastily, seeing Eugenides opening his mouth to reply, “that not forgiving is not the same as attacking, especially against someone stronger and more powerful. You don’t need to stay in here raging against your gods - if they are so powerful then they already know. It just means.. not forgetting. Waiting. The time will come.”

The time always did come, though for what Irene was not quite sure. Was there a way to gently assassinate a god, if that was needed to protect oneself? If there was, she would certainly find out.

He sighed, but accepted that. “So. They are not forgiven. It is not forgotten. But in the meantime, we carry on like good little rulers, and do what we’re told?”

“Just like,” she assented, her mouth twisting with bitterness for a moment. She had never wanted to be a puppet queen for anyone; she did not appreciate being one for the gods themselves. 

Eugenides’ face was grim, contemplating that. “Almost, I envy Kamet,” he commented softly, and she nodded understanding. Kamet at least could be freed from his master. Poor king - and poor queen for that matter - with nowhere to run if they chose.

His arm was still around her waist as they walked out of the temple. Irene felt him break away from her before she understood what he intended. Eugenides had stooped before she could react, picking up the nearest stone and hurling it towards the temple in a sudden fit of temper. He had always had keen aim and she watched as it flew towards the largest window, waiting for the inevitable crash of glass.

Which meant she saw as it stopped, impossibly, a mere inch from the window and dropped harmlessly to the ground.

The gods might choose not to give a response to threats and entreaties about their intentions. But they had heard.


End file.
